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Saturday, December 20, 2014

Historical Photos of the Black Hills Area

Larry Miller shared historical photos of the Black Hills
area to over 80 people from the Spearfish Area Historical Society on Dec 2,
2014.The location was the Spearfish
Senior Citizens Center.

The photographs were from the John C.H. Grabill collection,
starting in 1886 or 1887 for the next five or six years when John Grabill had
studios in Sturgis and then Deadwood and worked as the official photographer of
Homestake Gold Mine.John C.H. Grabill left the area and became a
famous photographer in Chicago.

Sioux City party on Tally Ho Coach near Hot Springs - 1889

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What's left of Big Foot band after Wounded Knee - 1891

The photos were obtained the from the Library of Congress free gallery website http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/grabill/ and
combed through hundreds of photographs, selecting, inspecting details, and
organizing them for our viewing and understanding.Starting with photos of the early towns of
Terraville (now a ghost town), Central City, Deadwood, and Lead City, Larry Miller then moved on to photos of Chinese citizens of
Deadwood and then to the area stagecoaches.
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Devil's Tower from the east - 1888

Larry showed photos of Native Americans at the time of the Wounded Knee massacre. One was of the
horse "Comanche" about that time; this horse survived the Battle of the Little Bighorn. We viewed photos of Native American gatherings such as the Great Grass Dance of 1890 at Pine Ridge. Larry then moved on to photos of the early gold mines
and stamp mills.The program ended with many early photos
of some of the unique (but off the road) landscape features in the area, such
as Devil's Tower, the "old man of the park" near Sundance, Phantom Ridge, and Echo
Canyon near Hot Springs.